Fa-la-la-la-la

Tomorrow (Friday) is Solstice Eve.  We are looking forward to our usual celebration of all things dark.  There should be fresh snow on the ground by Saturday, and it will be very cold.  We will be up for sunrise, and will keep a wood fire going all day, until sunset (don't ask why, it's just fun to do).  There will be plenty of eats and drinks, and lots of music.  For the full moon last Saturday we listened to Acis and Galatea, the opera by Handel.  It is a really great piece of music, and we hadn't listened to it since 2005.  For Solstice Saturday we will try hearing all or most of Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurenberg.  We've never heard the full opera, only some excerpts.

 

We are done with medical appointments until the new year, though Deb might try to get to a physio session.  Today (Thursday) she saw an oral surgeon for her TMJ problem.  She is now on a soft food diet for a month, along with taking some physio for the symptoms.  Something is very inflamed in there, and it needs to calm down.  An MRI was also requested, though that may take months.  The doctor won't consider doing anything invasive until he sees the MRI result.

 

With three appointments for Deb this past week, my reading time is doing just fine.  However, my piano practice is suffering a bit.  I had hoped to have the program memorized by Solstice.  It pretty much is!  A bit of remedial work near the end of the Debussy Prelude, and some mid-score work on the Philip Glass Etude, and all will be confined to the space between my ears.  The Haydn and Satie are pretty secure.  The Bach will not be memorized; it's too contrupuntal for my brain.

 

In movie news there are three to report.  Most recently we watched Del Toro's 2021 remake of  Nightmare Alley.   The original b & w film is one of the best, and I hardly think a remake was necessary.  Do we need a remake of Casablanca, too?  Having said that, Del Toro does a fine job with William Lindsay Gresham, the author of the 1946 novel.  Sets, costumes, CGI, and the unique use of colour shades enhance the film for modern viewers, many of whom know nothing of the original film.  Bradley Cooper stars as the con man, with Toni Collette as his assistant.  Together they come up with a winning psychic nightclub act, but when a chance comes up to make a lot of money pretending to put rich people in touch with their dead loved ones, things quickly get out of control.  Cate Blanchett stars as the therapist who outsmarts Mr. Smartypants.  Once one knows the ending, from seeing the earlier film, much of the fun of watching is removed.  Still, it is a stylish and very well done picture.  Recommended, especially if you haven't seen the original, or read the novel.

 

Now showing on Prime Video. 

 

Before that we watched Miller's Crossing, a 1920s gangster film by the Coen brothers from 1990.  Albert Finney stars as the successful Irish mobster boss, with the mayor and police chief in his pocket.  His right hand man is played by Gabriel Byrne, and the opposing Italian crime boss by John Polito.  The acting is very good, the script varies from comical to high drama, and the story itself is engrossing.  John Turturro gets a plumb role and milks it for all it's worth.  Byrne's character is the ultimate in laissez-faire lifestyle.  Whether he is getting beaten up for not paying his gambling debts, or being marched off to be executed by a rival mobster, or telling his boss to his face that he is sleeping with his (the boss's) girlfriend, he just lets what is to come happen, without fuss.  He is the picture's central character, and he pulls it off really well.  The violence is of the comic book variety, with machine guns, explosives, beatings, and threatening stares, and there is plenty of it.  Still a good picture to watch, even 34 years later.

We recently finished two Great Courses lecture series.  Both Understanding Gravity (24 lectures) and Mystery Fiction (36 lectures) were highly worthwhile projects.  We usually watch an episode at 6 pm, time permitting.  We are now embarking on two new courses.  Formal Logic and Geological Wonders are up next.

Mapman Mike 

Routine Existence

It's been two and a half years now of mostly indoor living, the longest period of daily routine I have ever imagined possible for me.  Now I know that I would have been a good candidate for a Mars journey.  A typical day includes two hours of piano practice, at a pretty intense level.  Then there is about 3 hours of reading, half an hour of exercise (more on yard work days), some map gazing, and of course movie watching.  But I did something this week that I haven't done in quite a while; I prepped some astronomy work, as observations will resume next weekend, weather permitting.  I am very excited about getting back to dark night skies, and since last night was a full moon (complete with party and opera!), it will take about a week for dark skies to return for a sufficient length of time to make my 50 minute journey worthwhile.

This month's opera was Die Walkure, the 2nd of Wagner's Ring trilogy, and certainly one of the most powerful and finest operas ever written.  I possess the complete set (4 actually, with the prelude opera) conducted by George Solti, with the Vienna Philharmonic, seen as pretty much the finest recordings of the Ring ever made.  We heard five sides of records (of ten), and will finish the opera on Equinox, the 22nd of September.  At that time we'll also read some more of Tolkien's Lost Tales aloud.  And perhaps, but not likely, have our first wood fire of the season.  So there are enough pagan holidays in the year to break up the routines a little bit.

But last week we really blew a hole in our routines.  We went on a picnic!  I'm certain National Geographic Magazine will be interested once I send them the details.  Each year since retiring we have headed out on the first or second day of school resuming to the shore of Lake Erie and had a picnic.  It's usually a sunny, warm day, with plenty of bees in attendance.  This year was no different.  For Deb, who hasn't been to Sudbury with me since before the Pandemic, or to Detroit, it was a big outing!  We enjoyed a walk near the lake, then afterwards went downtown Amherstburg to a real, actual cafe.

Lake Erie, with distant freighter and duck.

Lake Erie and geese.

Walking the greenway near Amherstburg. 

One of Deb's films is showing at a festival in Cleveland, only 3 hours drive from Detroit.  She would like to go, but it's the same old story.  Most people likely won't be wearing masks, and will be sitting too close together for a long period of time.  So we almost had a major overnight trip, but probably not.  As a consolation prize we will spend a long day in Ann Arbor, visiting their museums (art and archeology), book and record stores, etc.  Hopefully Tuesday.

Glancing at the news lately, it would appear that the Queen has passed away.  In fact, I see nothing but this news.  In the same week the UK gets a new Prime Minister and a new King.  I saw the Queen once, on her visit to Sudbury in 1957 (?).  I was four years old, but remember it quite clearly.  She did look up at our balcony and wave to our party as she drove past.  So I guess you could say that we were pretty close, if not best friends.  Why she was visiting such a dreary northern mining town is beyond me, but I know that our mines worked flat out during the war, greatly aiding the ally cause (after we stopped selling our goods to Germany, that is--gotta love capitalism).

It's still super dry around here, but still the weeds grow (if not much else).  The corn near us in the county is quite short and sickly looking, probably not a good thing.  70% chance of rain again this weekend.  When it does come, there is very little of it, enough to wet the surface.  The trees must be getting thirsty.  And the heat is still around, though the nights are cooler now, at least.

Coming next: viewing news update.

Mapman Mike